Defending Euhib, a single vaccine for cerebral meningitis – We Hear from Our Customer’s Shoe

There are countless cases where LG Chem put customers first and dealt with their inconveniences. ‘We Hear from Our Customer’s Shoe’ is a new series through which we look at the cases of improving customer complaints and how we solved them. Today, we invite Specialist Eom Yoon-sik, representing the foreign sales team of LG Chem’s Life Sciences Company. Specialist Eom will introduce a specific troubleshooting case related to Euhib, a vaccine that prevents cerebral meningitis.

Hello! Please introduce yourself and the product you’re in charge of.

Hello! I’m Eom Yoon-sik from the foreign sales team of Life Sciences Company. I’m in charge of Euhib, a vaccine that prevents invasive diseases (cerebral meningitis, etc.) caused by type B hemophilus influenza. These diseases can attack various organs of a human body, and the most common types are cerebral meningitis, epiglottitis, pneumonia, pyogenic arthritis, and cellulitis, which bring symptoms such as fevers, headaches, and chills.

In Korea, newborn babies take a mixed vaccine (combining more than two types of vaccines) for cerebral meningitis, along with DTaP and polio, at 2, 4, and 6 months after their birth. After that, they must take a single cerebral meningitis vaccine again between 12~15 months. Euhib is the single vaccine injected at the latter stage. Without Euhib, infants in their 12~15 months wouldn’t be able to get their vaccine to prevent cerebral meningitis.

Euhib is an essential vaccine to protect our children from cerebral meningitis,
but I heard its production was at risk of ceasing.

Euhib was a part of NIP (National Immunization Program), a vaccination supporting project run by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KCDC). However, with decline of the birth rate and the low purchase price despite increasing production costs, there was concern of a huge deficit. We were skeptical whether we could continue its production.

It was such a bad time that the production could have been stopped at any time, and I’m sure the KCDC had concerns about it. Yet, we firmly believed in continuing the production of Euhib amid the uncertainties. This is because, without Euhib, there would be no other single vaccine to protect infants from cerebral meningitis. It was the sense of duty that pushed us to carry on with producing Euhib. LG Chem is a company connecting science to life to bring a better future for humanity. In the same way, Life Sciences Company pursues ‘science and innovation that save lives.’ Putting this mission at our core, we try to make choices from our customers’ perspectives, and to benefit the society, humanity, and future, rather than focusing on the short-term gains.

Fortunately, you found a way to solve the production issue.

Communicating steadily with the KCDC about this situation definitely had its effect. The main problem was the low purchase price and high production cost. We tried to put on our customers’ shoes and maintain transparent communication with the agency. Through a long-term discussion, we could understand the difficulties faced by the agency and suggest an optimal solution that would help our customers. As a result, we succeeded in raising the purchase price gradually until it met our target. At the same time, we also pondered on ways to lower the production costs. We found the solution by visiting hospitals and directly hearing from our customers.

As we talked to the workers in charge of the actual vaccination, we learned that biopharmaceuticals like vaccines require cold storage at 2-8℃. This was a sensitive issue, since failing to keep the appropriate temperature would result in expiration of the whole stock. Our customers appealed to us that it’s inconvenient to store the bulky Euhib in the limited space of the cold storage. The previous packaging contained 10 injectors and 10 bottles of Euhib, and the volume of the package had to be huge. Most of the customers I met talked similarly of the inefficiency of this packaging. To get rid of the inconvenience experienced by customers, our marketing team, along with the production and regulatory affairs department, began discussing and pondering over the matter. Eventually, we developed an individual packaging which is half the volume of the previous packaging. During this process, we also tried automating the packaging, cutting down the production cost by 20%. Meanwhile, the KCDC contributed by gradually raising Euhib’s purchase price, forming an environment where we can product Euhib steadily.

It must have been a special experience for you.

At first, I only thought of it as an activity to improve our business performance and keep producing Euhib. But as I look back on the experience, I realize that the answer came from our customers. Mitigating our customers’ inconvenience naturally led to an improvement in our business situation, which was a whole-new experience. On top of that, we used to feel nervous that infants born in Korea would no longer have a vaccine for cerebral meningitis, but now I take pride in being able to provide Euhib to them.

How do we think from the customers’ shoes?

It’s important to meet the customer in person to hear and feel their difficulties. When you try to listen to your customer actively, rather than passively, you can experience and empathize with their inconvenience yourself. This way, you can catch what challenges they were facing. The case of Euhib particularly left me with a lesson that mitigating our customers’ inconvenience naturally leads to a solution to our own problems.

What are your future hopes for Euhib?

Euhib may not be the greatest delicacy, but it is a product as essential as salt. I hope this single cerebral meningitis vaccine can be a product that consistently contributes to infants’ health. Euhib changed my view about working, as well. As we pursue our career, there comes a time when we jump over a barrier that we thought we would never overcome. To me, accomplishing Euhib’s management goal was such an experience. And there’s no way I could have done it alone. It was thanks to the customers who gave us frank feedback on the current issue, and related departments who openly-listened to the complaints and worked to solve them together. I would like to express my gratitude for those customers and my co-workers for overcoming the barrier together. Well done and thanks to everyone!

How did you like the story of Euhib, the case of making high business performance by improving customers’ inconveniences? We hope Euhib will give steady help to infants’ health and be cherished for a long time. We will come back with another case-story of LG Chem as we put customers first and deal with their inconveniences.